Sticking with the movie trend, I decided to do a critically acclaimed masterpiece known as Howl’s Moving Castle. Again, I was worried this was going to be a girl’s fantasy anime with no action and no plot really. But again, I was only slightly wrong. Howl’s Moving Castle has a great story line, plenty of action, and was a total let down.
Howl’s Moving Castle
2 & 1/2 Stars
At the start of the movie, you follow Sophie, a plain girl that works at a hat shop and goes unnoticed by everyone around her. She lives in a small riverside market town. One day after work, she goes to see her sister that works at the bakery when she was stopped by two soldiers. They harass her a bit before a mysterious man saves her. He escorts her down the street when he is attacked by gelatinous creatures. He tells her to hold tight and jumps high into the air. They calmly float down into the balcony of the bakery where Sophie’s sister works. The mysterious man bids her a due and jumps off the balcony and disappears. Sophie is awestruck by the spectacle. She wanders into the bakery and tells her sister about what happened. Her sister was worried since it sound like a wizard, which to them, try to steal people’s hearts, and tells her to avoid him.
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Sophie returns home at the hat shop and locks up the place. A large, wealthy woman comes in and starts to poke fun at the “tacky hats”. Sophie gets mad and tells her to leave. The woman gets angry reveals she is the dreaded Witch of the Wastelands. Sophie tries to get away but is stopped by the witch’s henchmen. The witch then casts a spell on Sophie that makes her a 90 year old woman. Another part of the curse is that Sophie can’t talk about it.
She stares at herself in disbelief and goes to bed thinking it’s just a horrid dream. She wakes up to find out that it wasn’t. She goes out to the Wastelands to find a wizard named Howl and this magical Moving Castle. Before she leaves, she hears that a neighboring kingdom declared war on them because of their missing prince. She leaves town before any military action occurs.
While traveling to the wastelands where Howl’s Moving Castle was seen last, she finds out the limitation of her new body and almost gives up. She finds a scarecrow that is knocked over in a bush. She sets it upright and heads off only to find it actually is possessed by a demon and it follows her. She is first afraid of it, but when it helps her find Howl’s castle, she learns to enjoy his company.
She meets a flame demon (which is actually voiced by Billy Crystal) and falls asleep in a chair. She wakes up to a young boy named Markl running around doing errands. Howl later joins them and Sophie finds out he is the mysterious young man that saved her from the soldiers. He doesn’t recognize her with the spell. She volunteers to be their house keeper.
She quickly becomes loved by the whole gang and gets involved in a scheme to try to get Howl out of having to fight in the upcoming war. She claims she is Howl’s mother and goes to the head sorceress of the kingdom and says he is a coward and wouldn’t be any help. While Sophie is at the castle she runs into the Witch of the Wastelands. But the head sorceress stole her powers so she is just an old woman with no powers. The head sorceress sees through the disguise and attacks her. Luckily Howl is disguised near by and stops the sorceress from harming Sophie and pulls Sophie and the Witch of the Wasteland to safety. Sophie takes the witch while Howl provides a distraction and both of them escape safely to the castle.
Howl later returns all beat up but safe, but with a terrible cost. Using too much of his magic, he has a hard time turning back to his human self. Sophie is really worried and confronts him about her feelings. He takes them into consideration, so he decides to move them to a safe location. He moves them magically into her old hat shop, but with some serious redecoration.
They live in secret for awhile, but the head sorceress finds their location and tries to capture them, but the flame demon keeps them protected. The war finally finds its way to their doorstep and Howl has to come out of hiding to save them. Sophie tries to stop him, but he just flies off.
Trying to save him, Sophie mounts a rescue operation to save Howl, but it backfired, nearly killing Howl and his fire demon. She finds out that the demon has Howl’s heart and she puts it back in Howl’s chest. He is fine and they find out their scarecrow friend is actually the prince of the neighboring kingdom and his disappearance was the reason for the entire war.
So the war ends and Sophie and Howl fall in love and wander the world in his Moving Castle.
Well, this one was… different I guess. I was first surprised that Billy Crystal voiced in a anime cartoon. Also another odd thing was that the Moving Castle seemed like a reference to a Russian Fable about Baba Yaga’s Dancing House. Other than that, this anime was ok. I was a little let down because it wasn’t as amazing as I heard it was. It was just a normal movie to me and the plot was a little weak and spotty.
Overall I’d have to say this is one of my least favorite movies I’ve seen.
This movie was previously mentioned on our site here.